3p Contributor: Jennifer Elder, The Sustainable CFO
Recent Articles
Women Angel Investors on the Rise
Angel investor
According to founder Natalia Oberti Noguera, “The Pipeline Fellowship is committed to increasing diversity in the angel investing community and training a new generation of angels to invest for good. The Pipeline Fellowship is hoping to have an impact on the enormous disconnect between the number of businesses being started by women and the number of women receiving venture capital – a vital source of funding for start-up businesses.
The Six-Step Plan US Cellular Uses to Address Customer Frustrations
You know your industry is broken when 52 percent of customers would rather go to the dentist than your store. You know you have to make a major change when the customer experience ends when the customer leaves your store in handcuffs. That was the incident that drove John Coyle, Senior Director of Innovation and Strategy at US Cellular, to develop a revolutionary strategy. He “opened the kimono” and took a long-hard look at the status quo in the cellular industry and then asked the question, “What rational strategy can we develop to deal with irrational customers?” He believed that addressing the issues of the most frustrated and angry customers would improve the experience for all customers.
At the IE Group‘s Chief Strategy Officer Conference, Coyle described the six step process used to develop USCellular’s new strategy, all of which required brutal honesty and a willingness to look at what really happens with customers, not what you want to happen.
10 Recommendations for Start-ups Looking to Raise Capital
The 2011 Pipeline Fund Fellowship Pitch Summit had eleven woman-owned, for-profit, socially responsible businesses presenting their business plans, hoping to raise money from a group of ten women learning to become angel investors. During a break in the pitches, Nithya Das, an associate at the law firm Goodwin Procter presented the keynote. She represents and advises emerging and later stage companies on venture capital financing, securities offerings, and strategic partnerships. Drawing on her capital raising experiences, Nithya shared her top ten recommendations for start-up ventures.
They are as follows:
Get Your Sustainable Idea Approved – with a Business Case!
You have a great idea reduce your company’s environmental impact or increase its social impact. You’ve talked to your coworkers and they agree! There’s just one problem, how do you get the approval of the C-Suite decision-makers? Your CEO and your CFO are concentrating on the traditional bottom line and may not give you the time to talk about a “feel good” project.
As a former CFO, I have seen many really great ideas crash and burn before they even got started. But they usually began with someone knocking on my door and saying, “I’ve got a really great idea! Let me tell you what I want you to do.” Now it actually may be a really good idea, but if you can’t back the idea up with facts or you want me to figure out how to implement the idea then I’m going to ask you to come back later, much later. But that doesn’t mean you should give up. If you want your sustainable idea to see the light of day and get full management support then try looking at it from the C-Suite perspective and use a business case format.
Business Professionals and Non-Profits: Opposites Do Attract
Business people have analytical skills. Non-profit organizations have an increasing need for analytical skills. One would think it’s a match made in heaven. But due to misconceptions on both sides of the employment fence, there is a leadership gap. Monisha Kapila, founder of ProInspire, believes that the non-profit talent shortage has many sources – retiring baby-boomers, the rapid growth in the non-profit sector, poor recruiting strategies, and perceived barriers to entering the non-profit world.
According to the Bridgespan Group, non-profit organizations will need nearly 80,000 senior managers by 2016. Manpower’s fourth annual Talent Shortage Survey of 39,000 employers across 33 countries, indicated that despite a sluggish global economy, 30% of employers are having a hard time finding suitable employees. Management and Executives ranked number 5 out of 10 in the list of hard to fill jobs. With fewer people entering the workforce, baby-boomers beginning to retire, global recruiting of business talent, and the incredible growth of nonprofits, the result is a perfect storm of hiring issues.
Filling the Gender Gap – Educating and Training Women as Angel Investors
The glass ceiling is alive and well, especially for start-up entrepreneurs.
According to American Express Open 29% of all US businesses are owned by women and their numbers are growing by 1 and a half times the national average. “There are over 8.1 million women-owned businesses in the United States, generating nearly $1.3 trillion in revenues and employing nearly 7.7 million people.” However, while more women are starting new businesses, fewer are getting start-up funding. According to a study by University of New Hampshire , only 13% of the $20.1 billion invested in 2010 went to women-owned businesses. Fortunately for women entrepreneurs, the Pipeline Fund Fellowship (PFF) is trying to address the gender gap on two fronts, by increasing the number of women angel investors, and second, by increasing the funds available for women owned, for-profit, social ventures.
Environmental Winners at Rice University’s Business Plan Super Bowl
Rice University
Rice University began their business plan competition in 2001 with $10,000 in prize money. In eleven years it has rightfully earned the title of the Business Plan Super Bowl, the “richest and largest business plan competition” among universities. In 2001, there were 420 entries and the winners took home more than $1.3 million in cash and prizes. The entrants had to fine-tune everything from their elevator pitch to their PowerPoint presentations and run the gauntlet through more than 250 judges. The judges are from the investment sector including successful venture capital investors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. The primary criteria for judging is, “which company are you most likely to invest in?” While winning is not a guarantee of continued success, 120 past winners have gone on to raise $337 million in funding. This year, three of the six winners were environmentally focused. They were as follows:
Improve Your Sustainable Business With SWOTs
Congratulations on being ahead of the business curve by having a sustainably themed business! There are still too many old-school businesses that haven’t seen the light. But, being environmentally or socially responsible doesn’t mean you can ignore the bottom-line. You need to have profits to support your mission. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve had this conversation with a business owner:
Do you know what SWOT stands for? “Of course, it means Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats.”
When was the last time you did a SWOT analysis for your business? “Uhm, I’m not really sure.”
Can Manufacturing Come Back to the U.S.?
As America’s leading expert on “reshoring” and leader of the Reshoring Manufacturing Initiative (RMI), Harry Moser says, “YES! Manufacturing can come back to the U.S.” The aim of reshoring (also known as ”backshoring” and “onshoring”) is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from countries like China, India, and Mexico. This is not only possible; this is a current reality.
Reshoring is Happening
In October 2009, NCR Corporation stopped manufacturing ATM machines in China and opened a plant in Columbus, Georgia (and applied for LEED certification). In December 2009, Farouk Systems moved their hairstyling tools manufacturing back from China to a newly built plant in Houston, Texas. These two companies alone returned over 2,000 high-paying jobs to the United States. Reshoring is a concept that could revitalize our struggling economy and put hundreds of thousands back to work. That really is news!
Environmental Education Pushes Ahead in Maryland
Environmental education took a giant leap forward in Maryland on Thursday. Previously, schools were only required to expose students once to environmental education sometime between pre-kindergarten and twelfth grade. That changed when the Maryland State Board of Education unanimously approved a measure mandating all Maryland schools to integrate environmental education into the curriculum. Environmental education must now be woven into the fabric of all courses in all grades. While the original recommendation to the Board would have made Maryland the first state in country to make environmental education a graduation requirement, the change in the depth, breadth, and frequency is a significant improvement.
How Green is Your Green Conference?
pcj.typepad.com
Not all green conferences walk the walk. I have attended many conferences where the speakers lecture about sustainability, recycling, and minimizing environmental impacts, while the organizers and expo vendors are handing out marketing materials and swag like it’s candy. All the while the trash bins are overflowing with unnecessary waste and the irony of a green conference not being green is lost in the shuffle.
Occasionally you will find a conference that understands that the greatest impact can be made not just by talking, but by demonstrating how to actually “be” green. The 2010 Green Business Forum held in Baltimore was one such conference that led by example.
Panera Bread Experiments with “Pay What You Want” Model
Instead of kneading the bread, Panera is pushing the envelope – replacing a for-profit operation with a non-profit operation. On Sunday, May 16, quietly, without any press releases or ribbon cutting, Panera Bread reopened the operation of a Clayton, Missouri store as a non-profit. The model is “take what you need, leave your fair share.”
The St. Louis Bread Company Cares Café looks like a traditional Panera Bread restaurant. It has the same menu. Cashiers still take your order. But they won’t hand you a bill, instead you receive a “suggested” bill representing the price of your order at any other Panera Bread location. You can then make the payment, any amount you choose, above or below the suggested amount, in one of five donation boxes located within the store. If you cannot pay in dollars, you can pay by volunteering your time.
Hay: A Common-Sense Solution to BP Oil Clean-Up?
Oil spill cleanup idea
American ingenuity at its finest! Clean up the Gulf oil spill, employ the displaced shrimp and charter boats, create additional revenue for farmers, and generate energy – what’s not to like? While BP and the U.S. Coast Guard are focusing on stopping the continued leak, two men from Florida have figured out how to protect the coastline they love. Darryl Carpenter, the Vice President and 25 year employee of Florida-based CW Roberts Contracting and Otis Goodson, a sub-contractor, are stirring up the internet with a YouTube video that now has over 700,000 hits (see below to watch the video). While C. W. Roberts is a 35 year-old asphalt contractor in Tallahasse, Florida with no experience in oil spill clean-up they are proof positive of the old adage, “where there is a will there is a way!”
Carpenter’s common-sense and old-fashioned solution hands-down trumps the hi-tech, ecologically unfriendly ideas used to date. In the six and-a-half minute video he and Goodson demonstrate the effectiveness of using ordinary hay. They start with two metal bowls filled with water. They simulate the spill by adding motor oil to each bowl. One bowl is filled with Bermuda hay and the other with Bahia hay. A ladle size strainer is used the push the hay around, simulating the action of waves in the ocean. In just a few seconds they lift the oil soaked hay out of the pans. The results are astonishing; the water is back to being clear and drinkable. They go on discussing the possible methods for collecting the oil-soaked hay – skim booms, shrimp nets, dump truck on the beach. The waste hay even has benefit – it can be burned in refuse-to-energy plants. Oil and water don’t mix but hay and water make for a really effective combination.
The Global Water Challenge: Four Novel Solutions
Access to water is not always easy or safe
“There are 84 million people without water. More children die from bad water than from HIV and malaria combined. But solutions abound.” Those were the words of hope spoken by Cheryl Choge from Global Water Challenge at the Net Impact 2009 Conference. Cheryl and Tito Llantada of Ashoka Changemakers discussed the winning ideas from the Changemakers/Global Water Challenge Contest and what they learned from the first competition.
The contest, which ended in March 2009, sought solutions for clean water and safe sanitation. All entries were judged on their ability to be sustainable, replicable, and scalable. The contest drew an amazing 265 entries from 54 countries. The number and variety of entries demonstrated the breadth of global ingenuity and proved that there are viable low cost solutions to global water issues. The winner and three finalists shared one million in prize money donated by the CocaCola Foundation.
Recent Comments